"I just saw your comment about your project and have happily started following your blog. Heh, it is very helpful/reassuring/justifying to see that others out there are probably a little unstable all for the love of old buildings. Your building is absolutely lovely! Good luck on every step of the journey. It is like I tell each homeowner who comes into the architectural salvage shop I work at "Just think how happy you will be way way way down the road when you can stand back and say 'this will live on beyond me'". After all, preservation and restoration are the tools that common people can use to impress their thumbprint on the pages of history. Keep up the good work!"He sure hit the nail on the head when he talked about the instability of those of us who tackle these huge jobs. I promise, I had no idea of the scope of it when I started it. Will is also correct when he talks about the feeling that we are preserving a piece of history to live beyond us. That is one of the things that keep us going on those days when the pipes burst or the electricity is out (again!). And what a smart move he made by working in an architectural salvage shop. I admit, that fills me with envy. However, I have a different viewpoint from Will when it comes to the following statement he made in his blog:
"I always found it curious that someone who is "restoring" a building would need an interior designer, architect, decorator, consultant, and other members of the parade. Old buildings do not need these people under ideal settings. Their bones and their history are all we need to direct their change. One hundred years ago, someone already did the hard part. It is just up to the "restorer" to dust it off and fix it back up."
If I were restoring a fine Craftsman home, I would probably agree with Will. But our 100-year-old building required more than just "dusting off and fixing up." Our vision was not just to restore the building, but to completely repurpose it. It had been built to serve as a commercial building and through the years has housed the Chain Grocery, a Peachtree Industries sewing factory, doctors' offices, a photographer, the phone company, a dance studio and various other enterprises. It has actually served as a residence a couple of times, when the owners installed makeshift apartments. But our vision is quite different.
Although we have served as our own interior designers, decorators and consultants (because we couldn't afford to hire them!), our vision is to turn the upstairs into a high-end "loft style" residence while keeping the downstairs as a commercial space. When there are no closets or baths or kitchen in the original layout of the building, and you plan to live there, then those things have to be added. When the "appointments", such as window trim, are strictly utilitarian and very battered, then why not change them? No, I see nothing wrong with changing what must be updated in order to repurpose, and save, a wonderful old building.
Of course, where there are beautiful things worth saving, such as the pressed tin ceiling in the downstairs gallery area, we went out of our way to preserve them. In the case of the ceiling, because we needed more light, we added track lighting which we were able to install with only a few eyebolts at the junctures of the tin ceiling plates. The HVAC duct is visible for the same reason. We also needed more wall space for pictures and such, so we designed the crazy gallery partitions to divide the space up and add interest without interfering with that tin ceiling.
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